Japan's population to fall by third in 50 years

[dipsydoodle]

Japan's government yesterday released stark new evidence that the nation is on the brink of a demographic crisis, forecasting that its population will shrink by 30 per cent in the next half-century, while soaring life expectancy will further burden the state.

The report estimates that by 2060 the number of people in the Asian powerhouse will have fallen from 128 million to about 87 million, of which almost 40 per cent will be 65 or older. The report by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research warns that by 2110 the number of Japanese could plummet to 42.9 million – a third of the current population – "if things remain unchanged".

Japan's population began falling in 2004 and is ageing faster than any other on the planet. More than 22 per cent of Japanese are already 65 or older and women will have roughly 1.3 children, well below the population replacement rate. Experts have warned for years that the inverted population pyramid is a harbinger of economic and social disaster, but the institute's prediction is one of the grimmest yet.

The report will also have ramifications for other developed nations grappling with similar logistics of citizens having smaller families and living longer. "This is Japan's biggest problem," said Florian Coulmas, who heads the Tokyo-based German Institute for Japanese Studies. "It affects every aspect of the country's society, economy, culture and polity. Japan is ahead of the rest of the world. That requires adjustments that no other country has had to make in the absence of war, epidemics or famine. But Japanese politics is totally incompetent. The politicians haven't woken up to the fact that this is a national crisis."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japans-population-to-fall-by-third-in-50-years-6297289.html

[Bolo Boffin]

1. This is a duplicate thread to one in GD, but I believe that's allowed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002245094 is the thread on this article in GD.

[dipsydoodle]

2. It is the best of my knowledge

Such articles don't get buried here as fast as they do in GD.

[bemildred]

3. Sounds good, what's the problem?

Sometimes less is more.

[freethought]

4. As the article says, this isn't isolated to Japan

Japan is just the place where it's the worst. Europe is dealing with this problem as well.
The young people are having fewer children than their parents and grandparents. Where do you get taxpayers/workers to support the old/retired who are living years longer than they were just a few decades ago? Where do you get workers to fill jobs as older workers retire, especially in an industrial/manufacturing giant like Japan? You could have workers immigrate to Japan I suppose, but in a culture where conformity is prevalent, I'm not sure how the Japanese would react to a strange new presence in their midst. My guess is that it would not go over too well. Japan is not exactly a "melting pot" like the U.S.

In the U.S. the picture is different. The population is growing but at a decreasing rate. Two-thirds of population growth is births which are hovering at about 2 births per woman, the remaining one-third is immigration. It wouldn't take much to bring that population growth to near zero. Still though, even here in the U.S. there are fewer workers to support those that retire and those that do retire are living longer. All of this is well understood and has been for years.

What do you do? Force people to have children? Other articles I have read on this situation seem to suggest that the Japanese government should offer an incentive to have more children but it's not clear that even THAT would work. It's just a kind of fact with modern industrialized nations that birth rates decline. They don't need 6 kids to work the farm, and cut it back to 2 to send to college. Most of my married college friends are having only ONE child. My best friend and his wife have decided to have NONE. In what I see it's the exception that a couple are having 2 or more children.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. As I mentioned in a post in the other thread about this topic,

The Japanese government currently offers child subsidies ("jido teate&quot to most families who have children up to 12 years of age. All children under 3 years of age qualify for an allotment of 10,000 yen (about $130) per month, which goes to 5,000 yen starting in the 3rd year, unless that child is the 3rd or later child in the family, in which case the subsidy remains at 10,000 yen until the 12th birthday. Also, children can get reduced price medical care (including super cheap dental services through age 8), and there is an income tax deduction of more than $4000 for each minor child living at home.

In addition, there are actually "guest workers" in Japan (there is a mom-and-pop manufacturing operation near my house that employs a lot of Philippine and Thai workers, for example), and Japan has been somewhat encouraging the reverse migration of descendants of Japanese who had immigrated overseas, especially to Peru, Brazil, and other Latin American countries.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Furthermore, the current graying of Japan is a result of

a pre-war policy of "have as many children as possible to provide soldiers for the army and colonists for Manchuria and points beyond" (the average number of children per family at that time was five) followed by the war and immediate postwar years when camping out in the rubble was not conducive to having children, followed by rapid rebuilding and reindustrialization when people moved into small apartments, plus the abortion laws were liberalized so that it's basically on demand.

What's depressing the birthrate now, in my opinion, is the economy. The old system of joining an employer after you finish high school or college and then stay there until retirement is mostly gone. As in the U.S. (and for a longer period), there is a large population of people in their twenties and thirties who have never held more than a temporary or part-time job, the so-called "freeters." They sure aren't getting married and having children.

When I first went to Japan in the 1970s, it was considered embarrassing for a woman to be unmarried past the age of 25, and anyone who couldn't find a husband on her own was likely to resort to a matchmaker. (The Matchmakers' Association--Nakôdo Renmei-- used to advertise on TV.) No longer. There are plenty of single women in their thirties and older.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. I once had a Japanese pen pal who told me that she had become "Christmas cake"

or, as she explained it, "no good after the 25th", meaning that she had reached her 26th birthday and was still unmarried and maybe unmarriable (in her opinion). That was 30 years ago. Today, 25 is actually considered a little young to get married.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Yes, when I first met my landlady in Tokyo, she was telling me about her family:

her husband, who was "tanshin funin" (working away from his family) in Shizuoka, her son who was attending some university I'd never heard of, and her 25-year-old daughter, who worked at the ward office. "Kekkon shite kurereba ii kedo..." she added. "I wish she'd (do me the favor of) getting married." That was my first hint that the use of "kureru" was broader than the textbooks indicated.